Monday, March 9, 2009

From Jon 3/7

Subject: Wb ob leeg nyob twj ywm

Nyob zoo 'os!

We are experiencing an object lesson in opposition. No, no, we and our investigators are fine---I speak of the weather. It keeps bouncing between paralyzingly cold, to ears-uncovered warm. If it stayed warm all the time, I think we would not appreciate it. It's nice having some gulps of thawed air every once and again. It's also nice to get a lot of the snow off the roads and sidewalks. Of course, you have to deal with the rebound when it gets cold again and all the puddles freeze.

This transfer, me and Elder Cutshall are staying together in Minneapolis, but the two Hmong districts are merging together again, and Frogtown and Eastside are merging again. There is a threesome in St. Paul. 'Tis Elder Hadlock, Elder Nielson, and Elder Vaaj (Elder George Vang, the one who isn't Elder Richard Vang). Elder Erickson is in Brooklyn Park with Elder Hill. Elder Erickson has covered that area his entire mission, save three transfers. Now he's back. Elder Richard Vang is still in Eau Claire, and there is now a full Hmong team in La Crosse. It is Elder Lo and Elder Fawson. Now that the district is unified again, we have access to the whole state! Bwahaha! Last transfer we wanted to go to a restaurant in South Minneapolis, but it was just inside Eastside St. Paul's area, which means it was outside of our district, and outside our zone, so we had to call the assistants for permission to hop our border a half mile. Now we could go to Frogtown on P-day if we really wanted. In fact, if there weren't mile restrictions for P-day activities, we could probably go to Duluth.

We continue to see many little miracles sprinkled about our days. The other day we went with a member to go see a potential investigator whom we had met earlier in the week. We knew what her car looked like, and what street she lived on, but couldn't remember which house it was, and had forgotten to write it down. We drove slowly down the street, hoping that one of the houses would look familiar, or that we would see her car. We went up and down, but her car was not there. As we passed a certain block, all of us seemed to be looking at the same house. It didn't look familiar at all, but the member kind of slowed down, and for some reason the house seemed to speak out a little. In some way it seemed to be more inviting or promising. We kept going for about a block, and came to a dead end. One of us mentioned that there was a house back there that seemed promising, and we could give that a shot. We went back and, of course, it was that house. Her car was not there, but we all felt good about that house, so we knocked, and sure enough, her mother was there and she said her daughter was still at work. We found the house! We had met this girl on the street and only gotten her number. She didn't even point to which house was her's. What's more, this member wasn't there when we met her, and yet he noticed that house and slowed down without us saying a word. Huzzah for the Holy Ghost, our internal Liahona!

Misty and Cindy are getting ready for their big day on the 14th. We will finish up teaching the rest of the commandments on Monday, review the interview questions, and get them interviewed by the Zone Leaders on Wednesday. Hopefully Chor and Mee will feel the spirit at the baptism, and make the decision to be baptized soon rather than "eventually". We think the reason Chor wants to wait might be because he is having trouble with one or more of the commandments, probably the Word of Wisdom.

I was able to buy a nifty pocket dictionary recently. The Heinbach dictionary has been such a lifesaver, and so helpful, that missionaries call it "Tus phooj ywg xim liab", or "The Red Friend". The pocket dictionary I just bought was written by a Hmong man, and it goes English to Hmong as well, while the other dictionary only goes Hmong to English. Heinbach does a better job at explaining how to use the words, but there are some words, or alternate meanings of words, that one dictionary has that the other is missing. It is helpful using them together. This smaller dictionary also has a red cover, so we call it "The Little Red Friend".